An NCIS Christmas Carol sans ghosts
by Kara1626
Summary: Just a sweet little story for the holidays. WARNING: Contains mild discipline and veiled references to spanking.
1. Chapter 1

**WARNING: Contains mild discipline and veiled references to spanking.**

**Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine. I just borrow them.**

* * *

Tony dropped his bag on the floor next to his desk and turned on his computer screen. Tim and Ziva were already busily typing away looking like they'd been in the office for hours (and Tony was pretty sure Ziva actually had been – did that crazy Moussad chick ever sleep?) The ding of the elevator heralded the arrival of their fearless leader, coffee in hand, of course.

"Morning Boss," his choir of angels sang out.

"Morning," he grunted back, still clearly waiting for the coffee to kick in. He strode past Tony's desk, made eye contact and indicated that the younger man should follow him.

Tony glanced nervously at Ziva and Tim, but neither of them was paying any attention to him. He followed his boss to the alcove by the stairs, his mind spinning. What could he possibly be in trouble for this early in the morning? All he'd done so far was sit at his desk and offer up a few 'good mornings'. He'd even been ten minutes early. No, it wasn't anything he'd done today. He flipped back through his mental file to yesterday: Murder investigation in Rock Creek Park (complete with a mental note to stay away from that place as people seem to die there a lot), one headslap for a stupid comment (which was actually below par, so that couldn't be it), a visit to Abby's lab for…

"Relax, Tony. You're not in trouble," Gibbs said with a knowing grin.

"_Phew! Ok, we're good_," Tony's brain told him. "What's up?" he asked as nonchalantly as he could.

"What are you doing tonight?" Gibbs asked, taking a long sip.

"Oh, um, I was just going to stay home and watch some movies or something. I didn't bother planning anything this year. I've had to cancel my plans every year so far because someone always has to go and get themselves killed…Uh, I mean, we, uh, just always get called out on cases, so I…"

"I get it Tony. Stop talking." The smile was a welcome relief to Tony. Uncharacteristic, but welcome. "Come to Ducky's tonight."

"What?" Tony said, suddenly very confused.

"It's Ziva's first Christmas in the US, and Ducky thought it would be nice to throw a little Christmas Eve party."

"And…_you're_ going?" Tony asked.

There was that smile again. "Yes, Tony. I'm going. And so are Abby, McGee and Palmer."

Tony thought about that for a moment and then, "Well…how come I'm just finding out about it?" He was a little hurt. Were they just not planning on telling him at all?

Gibbs shrugged it off. "It was Abby and Ducky's idea. And they figured if they got everyone else on board, you and I would have no choice. Ducky only told me about it this morning." Tony looked doubtful for a moment, but then he sighed. "So does that mean you're coming?"

"Wait, aren't we expecting a big storm?"

Gibbs grinned and walked away. "1900. And bring candy canes." he called back.

* * * * *

When Tony arrived at Ducky's, the driveway was already full of cars. For some reason, no one thought to carpool.

He let himself in the front door and was immediately hit with a wall of warmth, cinnamon and pine, what sounded like maybe the Boston Pops, and laughter. He hung his coat on the hook by the door and paused for a moment to take it all in. The last time he'd encountered that particular combination, he'd been ten. A smile broke out on his face but before he could take a step, he heard a shout.

"You came!!" And then he was nearly bowled over by an already-hyper Abby.

"Of course I came," he said, planting a kiss on her cheek. "There's no where else I'd rather be tonight," he told her. And to his surprise, he discovered that it was the truth. He pondered that while Abby dragged him to the living room where everyone else was gathered, glasses of champagne in hand.

He took in the scene – fire in the fireplace, a beautiful live pine decked out in the corner, pine bows draped on the mantle, candles flickering – it was like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. "I'm uh, gonna go put this…" he mumbled and lamely held up the bottles of beer he was holding before turning toward the kitchen.

Alone in the kitchen with the sounds of his friends laughing and telling stories in the background, Tony leaned on the counter and looked out the window at the lights on the neighbor's house. For some reason, a lump was forming in his throat and tears prickled his eyes. He swallowed hard, trying to get that maddening lump to go away, but it continued to grow.

He didn't hear Gibbs come in, but suddenly, there was a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Hey, you ok?" He nodded, but didn't trust his voice. "Tony? What's wrong?"

Taking a deep breath, he started to speak, but found that he had no voice. Even worse, a single tear escaped his eye. He could feel Gibbs staring at him and he turned away slightly, hoping his boss hadn't seen the tear. Finally, he cleared his throat and straightened up. "It's just been a while, that's all."

"Yeah, me too. But I think, maybe, this year is a chance to make some new memories," Gibbs offered. Tony nodded.

And then Gibbs pulled him into a hug.

Immediately, the tears were threatening again. The only time Gibbs had ever hugged him was after he'd gone to town on his butt for some stupid prank. This was new. And a little off-putting. Tony hesitantly returned the hug and was grateful when Abby flew into the kitchen.

"What are you guys doing in here?" she asked excitedly as Gibbs released him. "The party's elsewhere."

Tony chuckled at her, in spite of all of the thoughts and emotions floating around in his head. "Ok, ok, we're coming," he said and strode out of the kitchen.

Abby put her arm through Gibbs' and looked up at him. "Is he ok?" she asked, worry lining her face.

Gibbs grinned as he watched Tony walk away. "Yeah, he'll be fine."

The evening passed in a cloud of stories, laughter, sugar and just a little bit of alcohol, and no one even noticed that it had started snowing. But they did notice when the wind picked up.

"Wow!" Jimmy exclaimed as the windows suddenly rattled. He, Abby and Ziva jumped up and hurried over to the window. "I can't even see the house across the street!" Soon, they were joined by the rest of the current occupants of the house.

Somehow, they had missed nearly eight inches of snow falling which was now, not only being added to by the second, but also being blown around wildly.

"Hm," Gibbs grunted. He turned to Ducky. "Well, Duck, it looks like you've got some overnight guests."

"Indeed I do, Jethro," Ducky agreed. He didn't look at all disappointed.

"Wait, what?" Tony asked. "Come on, it's not that bad," he said as a particularly vicious gust rattled the windows again.

"No one's going anywhere," Gibbs said, well, ordered.

Ziva and Abby looked at each other excitedly. "My first wizard!" Ziva squealed and she and Abby started jumping up and down. Apparently, sugar was her Kryptonite, Tony observed.

"Blizzard," he corrected, rolling his eyes and then quickly moving out of reach of Gibbs' arm – just in case.

"I want more hot chocolate," Abby giggled as she grabbed Tim and Jimmy's arms and dragged them to the kitchen, Ziva following close behind. "This is so exciting!"

Tony stared out the window, watching the snow blow around. Suddenly, he wheeled around to Gibbs and Ducky, who, he found, were grinning at him. "You did this on purpose, didn't you?" he accused.

The two older men exchanged smiles and looked back at Tony. "Eh, it'll be fun," Gibbs said.

"Fun?" Tony spat out. "You think getting snowed in is fun?" They kept grinning like Cheshire cats. Finally, he took a deep breath and returned their grins. "Yeah, ok. I just hope we don't get called out."

Gibbs and Ducky exchanged another smile and Abby, Ziva, Tim and Jimmy piled back into the living room, loaded down with mugs full of hot chocolate with marshmallows. They handed mugs to Gibbs, Ducky and Tony and flopped down on the floor in front of the fire place.

Gibbs took a sip and then put his mug down. "Hey, give me your keys and I'll go get your bags out of your cars."

Immediately, Ziva, Abby and Tim rummaged in their pockets and produced their keys.

"I'll help you, Boss," Tony offered, taking Abby's.

"You guys all have overnight bags in your cars?" Jimmy asked.

"You don't?" Tim answered.

"Um, no."

"Ah, don't worry, Jimmy," Ducky said, "I'm sure between Tony, Tim, Jethro and myself, we can rustle up everything you need. Well, except underpants. Oh, wait…I think we've got those too." He walked to the tree and picked up one of the three wrapped packages underneath it. He tore the paper and opened the box. "Ah yes, here you go," he said as he held out a pair of boxer shorts festooned with moose wearing Christmas lights on their antlers. "Mother gives me a new pair every year. They may be a little loose, but they should serve the purpose."

Jimmy took the proffered shorts hesitantly, obviously a little embarrassed. "Um, thank you, Doctor," he said, glancing around.

Gibbs and Tony donned their winter apparel and went out into the winter wonderland as Ducky began thinking out loud about where everyone would sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

* * * * *

The next morning, Tony was flung out of a dream involving a particularly beautiful snow elf back to reality by a Goth and an assassin bouncing suddenly on his bed. They had eased open the door, tip-toed into the room, done a silent count as if they were SEALs on a mission and attacked. "Merry Christmas, Tony!!" they shouted.

Tony, who was used to waking up alone to the soft sounds of his clock radio screamed like a little girl and reached for his weapon, which, gratefully, was locked in his car in the driveway, buried under a towering snowbank.

"They got you too, huh?" Jimmy asked, poking his head in the door. "I think McGee wet himself," he laughed.

Ziva bounced out of the room, but Abby shifted herself to the top of the bed and snuggled up to Tony, who pulled back the blankets and let her climb into bed next to him. "I'm glad you're here," she said as she laid her head on his chest.

Still coming down from the shock of his rude, but merry, awakening, Tony breathed heavily and rested his head on the headboard. After a moment, he looked down at her and smiled. "Yeah, me too." They stayed in the warm bed talking for a while until the smell of bacon wafting up the stairs was just too much for Tony's growling stomach to take.

Breakfast was a rowdy affair, as could only be expected. Eggs, bacon, pancakes, fruit, and of course, coffee were consumed with gusto, and shortly afterward, everyone was changed out of their pajamas (the girls) and sweats (the manly men) and headed out the door to move some snow.

Once the sidewalk was cleared and the cars dug out, the only logical activity was a massive snowball fight, started, of course, when the quarterback-turned-sniper nailed Tony in the back of the head with a large gathering of innocent little snowflakes.

Tony, thinking it had been Ziva, turned on his partner and tackled her to the ground. In no time, all of them – even Ducky – were throwing snowballs and ducking behind cars and bushes. Jimmy, it turned out, had excellent aim, which he later attributed to years of defending himself from the mean boy who lived in the apartment below his when he was a child. Tim held his own against Gibbs for a while, but when Tony joined forces with his boss, it was more than he could take and he was forced to surrender.

Tony and Gibbs, having decided they made a pretty good team, had snuck around the side of the house and were peering out, looking for their next victim. The next thing they knew, they were both face down in a snowdrift, having been ambushed by Abby and Ziva.

By the time they all decided they were just too wet and cold to carry on, the front yard looked like a battle zone, complete with snow people – some holding stick rifles, some laying on the ground with large chunks missing or heads laying next to them (the latter being Tony and Ziva's work, of course).

The group thinned as people peeled off to go inside, take showers and get warmed up. Gibbs and Tony sat on the front steps after the last group had gone in to use the two bathrooms with showers.

"See?" Gibbs teased, "I told you it would be fun."

Tony laughed as he played with the snow he'd pulled off his boot. "Yeah," was all he said.

* * * * *

Tony emerged from the shower, dried off and put on dry clothes from his bag. He could hear his friends down in the kitchen, and he was starting to smell something that smelled suspiciously like roast beef. He wondered whose idea this all had been – Gibbs' or Ducky's – but after a moment, he decided that he really didn't mind it at all. He wandered down the stairs and found everyone gathered in the warm kitchen. Abby was cutting up vegetables, Jimmy and Tim were washing and drying the breakfast dishes and anything else that was dropped into the sink, Ducky was stirring something on the stove and Ziva and Gibbs were peeling potatoes.

"Feels like I'm back in the Corp," Gibbs joked as he peeled.

"Feels like I'm back in Israel," Ziva said. Gibbs gave her a curious look. "Peeling potatoes for latkes," she explained.

"Ah, Tony!" Ducky called out when he saw him leaning on the doorway. "The plates are in that cabinet over there and the cutlery is in that drawer. Use the glasses in the breakfront in the dining room. Abigail will help you," he said as Abby dumped her vegetables into a pot on the stove. In no time, the dining room table was set and Abby was putting her own special touches on seating cards, having given Tony the job of folding the napkins to look like Christmas Trees.

Dinner was delicious – the second proper meal most of them had had since Thanksgiving (breakfast having been the first). The roast was cooked to perfection, the potatoes had just enough lumps and the gravy had none. When the dishes were cleared and the kitchen cleaned up, Abby raided the pantry and found flour, sugar, baking soda, vanilla, butter and eggs and she, Tim and Jimmy set about teaching Ziva how to bake and decorate the perfect Christmas cookie. Later, it was revealed that she knew exactly what she was doing when she produced a dozen perfectly-formed dreidels and half a dozen chanukiahs – they were harder to make, she explained.

Tony, on the other hand, decided that he wasn't done throwing things at his friends and decided to start a flour fight. The only problem was, no one else wanted to play along. Seconds after he started hearing screams, "Tony!!!"s and "Hey! Knock it off!!"s from the kitchen, Gibbs was in the doorway taking in the scene. Flour covered the floor, counter, Tim's head and the front of Abby's skeleton t-shirt. Tony was mid-throw when he heard his boss shout.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?" Gibbs demanded. In no time, Ducky was behind him in the doorway, speechless.

"I was just trying to have a little fun," Tony whined. Then he looked around at the mess he'd made. "Sorry, Ducky," he said sheepishly.

"It's all right, my boy," Ducky said as he turned and walked back to the living room. "I _know_ you'll clean it up."

Gibbs leveled a glare at Tony as the rest of the group hurriedly turned back to their baking, not wanting to have anything to do with the pool of trouble he was standing in. Tony cringed as Gibbs walked toward him, fully expecting a headslap. Instead, Gibbs took his arm and walked him to the window.

"Look out there," he said, pointing into the back yard. "Do you know what that is?"

Tony swallowed hard. "It's a shed, Boss," he said resignedly.

"Uh huh," Gibbs replied. "Pull another stunt like that and you and I will visit it," he said then released Tony's arm. The sharp swat wasn't completely unexpected, but it was quite a bit lower than Tony had anticipated it falling. "Got it?"

"Got it Boss," Tony agreed. True to his word, the rest of the afternoon was without incident. And when he was done cleaning, Ducky's kitchen sparkled, thanks mostly to Gibbs' instruction. And help.

A little later, everyone was settled back in the living room, drinking yet more hot chocolate and nibbling on cookies.

"So," Ducky said loudly, effectively ending all of the side conversations. "Why don't we tell each other our favorite Christmas memory. I'll start. The year I was nine, I came down with the measles on Christmas Eve. I was just miserable and completely inconsolable. My brother had had them a few weeks earlier, so it was only natural that I would get them too. But to have them for Christmas was just more than I could bear. My family tried everything they could think of to cheer me up, but of course, nothing helped. But when I woke up Christmas morning, I found that somehow in the night, the Christmas tree had been moved from the sitting room to my bedroom, complete with presents." He smiled broadly at the memory for a moment then turned to Jimmy.

"My favorite Christmas?" Jimmy thought for a moment. "I think it was when I was six. We had just moved into another new apartment and I was so sure Santa wouldn't be able to find us. But in the middle of the night, I was woken up by a "Ho Ho Ho" (which Jimmy called out in his best Santa voice). My uncle had dressed up as Santa and showed up with the presents my mom had bought. Of course, I was six, so I thought it was the real Santa. But now I know it was my uncle," he explained needlessly, much to everyone's delight.

It was Ziva's turn. "When I was a child, we always had a big Chanukah party at our house on the fourth night. I remember the last Chanukah before my mother died, helping her clean and bake and get ready all day. When our guests arrived, there was more food than I had ever seen, lots of presents and everyone was so happy." She stared into the fire for a moment. "That was the last party we ever had. But I will remember every detail for the rest of my life."

Abby, of course, threw herself at Ziva and squeezed her. She let go and sat back. "Next year, we'll have a Chanukah party," she said decisively, and the moment of sadness was broken with laughter. "My favorite Christmas," she began, "was the year we all loaded in the car and drove to North Carolina to visit Grammy. It was the first white Christmas I ever had. It doesn't snow a lot in Louisiana, you know. All my cousins were there and we roasted a pig and had a snowman building contest to see who would get the tail. I made the best snow mummy you've ever seen. But," she added, "my cousin BillyBob made a twelve-point buck complete with red food coloring and an acorn shotgun shell and he won." The room was silent for a moment as she looked around eagerly. Eventually, everyone started murmuring…

"That's…interesting, Abbs."

"Um, that's…uh…"

Tony though, burst out laughing at the image in his head of a dead deer made out of snow, and soon everyone else was laughing too.

Tim went next. "My dad was stationed in Switzerland one year on an exchange program. We got to go skiing in the Alps, and to the midnight light festival. And the chocolate was incredible! Yeah, I think that was my favorite Christmas," he concluded with a satisfied smile.

Tony sat quietly staring into the fire for a moment, feeling six pairs of eyes on him. "I think my favorite Christmas was the year we actually stayed home instead of going to Cancun or Greece or somewhere. My father decided that he wanted to see what Christmas on Long Island was like, so he rented a bunch of decorations and hired people to put them up, we sent the gardener to cut down a tree, and we had dinner catered at the house. It even snowed a little." He smiled for a moment then shrugged. "But the tree fell over and caught on fire when it hit a candle, my dad got into an accident when his car slid off the road on his way to the store for more Scotch, and then he found out the store was closed anyway. We went to Jamaica the next year." That garnered hearty laughs all around.

Then all eyes were on Gibbs. Tony waited with bated breath for a peak into his boss' childhood. Gibbs looked around the room and a soft smile formed on his lips. His eyes sparkled in the flicker of the fire and the lights on the tree. He sighed contentedly. "My favorite Christmas?" he said thoughtfully and then nodded. "I think it's this one."

**Happy Chanukah! Merry Christmas! God bless us. Everyone!**


End file.
